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Swift Attack

It’s a sad day in hell when the only thing the privileged few can be offended by is a Joy Division joke. It seems Scott Aukerman a well-known comedian was taken down a peg or two by tweeting a terribly offensive if not downright misogynistic joke. I hesitate to repeat it but I must. The infamous tweet was as follows: “In my research, I’ve found the hot girl wearing the Joy Division t-shirt never wants to actually talk about Joy Division.” Yup. Can you believe the audacity? Oh wait, reality check brain freeze moment….what the fuck? This kind of shit is passing for sexism? Have we as a society become so sanctimonious that we can’t see the forest for the trees? As a card-carrying feminist I find this kind of discourse irrelevant. I really couldn’t give a flying fuck that Mr. Aukerman thinks girls that wear Joy Division t-shirts don’t seem too informed about the band. And I don’t see why anyone else should either. Let’s get something straight. It’s not sexist to make fun of women. Just like it’s not sexist to make fun of men. Certain things should never be made into a joke like rape, abused, being disabled or just about anything that has to do with degrading and abasing another human being with no control. There are certain words that bring a chill down my spine when I hear them such as retard ugly and stupid. As a child I was called all of these things and much worse so I probably have more experience with humiliation than most. Needless to say my experiences have taught me a thing or two about what is and isn’t appropriate material for comedy and this joke falls into the former category. If anything it shows how very privileged certain men and women are to even have the time to be offended by this tweet. Meanwhile women in every corner of this world are being beaten raped and murdered while the rest of us are offended by a Joy Division t-shirt. What? Are you fucking kidding me? Let’s get some perspective. Women are very much second class citizens in a man’s world but this incident only reinforces a Victorian ideal of how women should be treated. Namely, we should be seen and worshipped but never touched or made human. God forbid we be scandalized by the vulgarities of male banter and held to the same standards as our male counterparts. Standards that are rarely extended our way. We might fall on the fainting couch and require immediate medical attention. This incident only adds fuel to the misogynistic/sexist perception that women are pedestrian and pedantic. Being offended by a harmless observation is no justification for holier than thou attitudes. Or in other words, get over yourselves people. Too bad it wasn’t a Tyler Swift t-shirt. Then no one would have noticed. Word bitches.